For the Record: The Coen Bros.: a Cabaret Show About Big Lebowski Filmmakers, and Other Reviews

Anti-Semitic graffiti found on a market wall in central Houston last month is just one symptom of why The Merchant of Venice belongs on our shores. The Porters of Hellgate have their version running at the Whitmore Theatre in North Hollywood. See Theater feature

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Capsule reviews of the Labor Day weekend included good notices for Los Angeles Theatre Ensembles

GO FOR THE RECORD: THE COEN BROS. A white Russian, the drink highlighted in The Big Lebowski, is the first cocktail on the drinks menu at this Coen Brothers musical revue, and near my seat people were also pounding a jalepeno margarita called the Burn After Drinking, a

take on another Coen title. The dinner theater company, which previously concocted salutes to John Hughes, Quentin Tarantino and Baz Luhrmann, chose their latest subject wisely: the Coens' schizophrenic resume of slapsticks, Westerns, satires, thrillers and Depression-era

Odysseys has siren-songed a wildly eclectic crowd to cram shoulder-to-shoulder in this dark bar, an audience so tightly packed it seemed impossible for the eight-person ensemble to sing and saunter through the mob when even our waiter couldn't get closer than six feet to the table. And bless them, one actor didn't even flinch when an over-enthusiastic German offered him a bite of his chocolate souffle during the opening hymnal "Poor Lazarus" from O' Brother Where Art Thou. The cast got their revenge, though -- during a Fargo skit, tonight's Margo mock-vomited in his lap. The cast can sing and they're capable of comedy between numbers when they're not changing costumes from prairie dresses to argyle sweaters to Viking horns. If there was a larger statement to shape out of the nearly two-hour evening, it'd be that the Coens must be great fun at karaoke -- their soundtracks have an ear for the familiar, but not over-played, hits. ("These Boots Are Made For Walking" aside.) As the ensemble struts up and down the length of the bar top, brushing aside light fixtures and belting out classics like "The Boxer," "Habenera," and "Up, Up and Away," the crowd couldn't resist clapping along. Vermont, 1714 N. Vermont Ave., Los Feliz; Thurs.-Sat., 9 p.m.; thru Sept. 24. showatbarre.com (Amy Nicholson)

GO THE NEXT BEST THING

Rich Clark

Writer/performance artist Antonio Sacre calls himself a story-teller

rather than a comic, but that doesn't mean he isn't funnier than most of

the comics around -- and a lot more: In his solo-show, written in

collaboration with Jim Lasko and directed by Paul Stein, he tells about

his delight and ecstasy at finding his perfect woman when both were

working in a Chicago Theatre. They were married, and he felt no

resentment even when her career in TV and film took off, and he was

reduced to the nonentity walking behind her on the red carpet. When she

suddenly told him she no longer loved him and wanted a divorce, he was

devastated. But his ironic edge and self-deprecating wit allow him to be

funny even in despair. He describes the perils of returning to the

dating scene, and his adventures as a performer for prison inmates,

where his traditional material died on him, and he had to forge a new

approach. He tells us a Russian fairy-tale, regales us with his bizarre

encounters with self-help gurus, and the eccentricities of his Mexican

father and Irish mother. His stories feel authentic even when they veer

into fantasy, and his view is fresh, quirky, and unpredictable. Theatre

In a barren, northern clime, Helga (Christel Joy Johnson) and her Mother (Katharine Noon) have converted their farmhouse into a small, makeshift inn; male travelers who stay the night can check out any time they like, but they can never leave.

Instead, Helga and her mother kill them for their money, dreaming of saving enough to escape this winter wasteland and live by the ocean. Into this bleak house steps Johan (Doug Sutherland), the prodigal son who returns home after decades, accompanied by his partner Matt (Brian Weir). Helga's bitterness at Johan's abandonment, Johan's desire to reconnect with his family, and the fate of all men who enter the inn combine to create the dramatic tension that ensues. While the basic story is that of Albert Camus' Le Malentendu (The Misunderstanding), the removing of this adaptation from its 1943 Vichy France backdrop strips it of its crucial philosophical underpinnings. When the only questions become whether Johan will reveal himself and whether his mother and sister will kill him, the larger question of "civilized" people abandoning their humanity is supplanted by a less interesting whodunit. Sure, the proper ambience is achieved by David O's piano tremolos and Cricket S. Myers' barren "windscape" punctuated by reverberating chords. Also fitting are Johnson's biting tone, which is as cold as the weather, and Noon's ghostly demeanor as she drifts about the place. But the bones of this piece -- mirrored in Maureen Weiss' slatted set -- are all that director Ronnie Clark gleans from Camus. The soul? Well, that is another matter altogether. Ghost Road Company at Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave., Atwater Village; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m. (no perf Sept. 17); thru Sept. 25. (310) 281-8341. ghostroad.secure.force.com/ticket. (Mayank Keshaviah